Wireless Site Surveys and Heat-Mapping Services

Active Wireless Site Survey. Wi-Fi Spectrum Analysis & Wireless Coverage Validation

Are you looking to enhance your Wi-Fi performance, to fix wireless performance issues, or expand your Wi-Fi coverage? If you are serious about rock-solid, fast & reliable Wi-Fi, you need an Active Wireless Assessment.

Our expert CWNA technicians (Certified Wireless Network Architects), using the latest tools and technologies including active spectrum analyzers, will help you get the absolute best performance from the wireless equipment you already own – and we will help you implement changes to your configuration and design to get the best results. If additional equipment is needed for expanded coverage or additional capacity, you will be provided with a revised system design that shows the exact placement, channel selection, and configuration of every access point so you can make an informed decision.

Our team has experience with the most challenging types of wireless infrastructure – high-density office buildings and high-rises with multiple tenants, large warehouses with racks and lots of dense inventory, manufacturing facilities using barcode scanners with lots of machinery and electrical interference, K-12 and higher-ed facilities with very dense user populations with multiple devices each, all using lots of bandwidth, and large event venues like hotels, conference centers, sports arenas – even large swimming pool complexes which are incredibly challenging due to the way Wi-Fi interacts with water.

These congested environments, high-density applications, and specialized spaces are some of the hardest challenges for Wi-Fi implementation, and we’ve done them all.

Wireless Heat-maps are used to find the dead zones and to map the location of connected devices.

There are several types of wireless assessments – you can even get some of them for free. There are predictive assessments, planning assessments, and active assessments. Some people in the industry call them ‘surveys’ instead of ‘assessments’ – the most important thing is to ask if it’s predictive, passive, or active.

Only an active, on-site assessment with a spectrum analyzer will lead to the rock-solid, fast and reliable Wi-Fi that most organizations are looking for.

What is an active assessment?

During an active assessment, we complete an on-site spectrum analysis, a wireless system review, and we present design and configuration change recommendations to enable you to take your Wi-Fi to the next level. For the most demanding and rigorous applications we also conduct a post-implementation on-site spectrum analysis and coverage validation assessment where we confirm that the changes are implemented, working, and that the results exceed your expectations.

Our active assessments are conducted by one of our trained and certified Wi-Fi engineers - CWNA certified technicians are skilled professionals with in-depth knowledge validated by independent proctored examination. Our CWNA's use a professional spectrum analyzer – a Wi-Fi device that provides highly accurate, high-resolution Wi-Fi surveys by using two Wi-Fi radios and a spectrum analyzer to achieve expert-level Wi-Fi site surveys and troubleshooting across your network.

During an active wireless assessment, we measure Wi-Fi signal strength, noise, co-channel interference, network configuration information, and we include a comprehensive spectrum analysis. Our active assessment can survey the latest 802.11 Wi-Fi standards, including Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 7.

We use an Ultra-High Speed, High-Resolution Spectrum Analyzer.

Today's Wi-Fi problems are not just caused by Wi-Fi, but increasingly by interfering non-Wi-Fi sources such as microwave ovens, cordless phones, and video transmitters. Our active wireless assessment features an ultra-fast, high resolution spectrum analyzer that operates on both 2.4 and 5GHz bands simultaneously and provides automatic detection and classification of known interference sources. The spectrum analyzer speed is 4-10 times faster and more accurate than other Wi-Fi spectrum analyzers, resulting in quicker problem resolution, site survey walk-throughs, and more precise pinpointing of interference issues.

Active Site Surveys provide more insight on the network connectivity and performance.

Our tools analyze and document packet loss, packet delay, and access point configuration. The active survey also allows for validation of environmental factors that can affect radio frequency coverage including building design elements, wireless interference, and RF/electrical interference. As the name suggests, during our active survey our tools are receiving AND sending packets to analyze and validate what's truly going on with the network and your facility.

We will use your provided facility plans (AutoCAD, PDF or similar) to create a design for a Wi-Fi environment based on ACTUAL Wi-Fi signal strengths, noise levels, SNR (signal-to-noise ratio), and coverage density. The design will include maps for signal strength for 2.4 and 5.0GHz bands, Signal to Noise Ratio on 2.4 and 5.0GHz bands, Channel overlap for 2.4 and 5.0GHz bands, number of access points required for 2.4 and 5.0GHz bands, data rate expectations for 2.4 and 5.0GHz bands, throughput expectations for 2.4 and 5.0GHz bands, and access point specifications for each location in the predictive design.

What results can you expect from our active Wi-Fi assessment?

Review the images below to see a typical “before and after” image showing the pass/fail areas of a Wi-Fi network before the active assessment, and after the changes we made once we had data from our spectrum analyzer and our expert CWNA technicians. Here are some recent Wi-Fi challenges we’ve resolved:

• An active assessment of a K-12 Catholic School campus found major channel interference, bad radio placement, and major configuration problems. In a 3-day period, we took the facility from a 100% fail across the entire campus to a 100% pass – without adding any new equipment.
• An active assessment of a medical practice located in a very dense high-rise building in a large metro area found massive overlapping channels, cross-channel interference, bad signal strength and 80% of the facility failing coverage standards. We completed two active assessments – a before, and an after – and the results were a 100% pass with a new, rock-solid, reliable, and fast wireless network using the equipment they already owned.
• An active assessment of a food manufacturing facility and warehouse found barcode scanners constantly dropping off network, resulting in major production delays. Our active assessment found the issues including weak signal strength, cross-channel interference, bad radio placement, and lack of coverage. Due to the critical nature of the production environment, the client chose to implement updated equipment – their old equipment was over 5 years old. The new system resulted in 100% coverage, which is fast, reliable and secure – with no dropped signals from barcode scanners, and no more production delays.
• A major regional aquatics center and natatorium hosting both regional and national events needed a fast, reliable, and secure Wi-Fi solution that had the density of coverage to allow every attendee in the arena to have at least two devices and at least 20Mb of throughput per device. We used a combination of predictive design and active spectrum analysis to achieve world-class performance in this challenging indoor/outdoor environment.

Here is an example of a ‘before and after’ image showing Wi-Fi coverage before an active assessment, and after the changes made by our technicians:

Contact Verteks today to get a professional wireless network installed at your location.